We went away to the Lake District to celebrate my 40th birthday and I’m writing this now in the car on the way home while listening to David Bowie’s “The Next Day”. A birthday tradition. Bowie, not the Lake District. For my 30th we went to New York. So I guess it’s also a tradition that the big birthdays are marked with a crazy weekend away. Then, it was the insanity of flying all the way to America for three nights in Manhattan at the height of Christmas so we could get away from it all before joining the rest of the family for a festive gathering back in the UK. Now, it’s driving up to Keswick straight from work on a Friday night in January, the day after the North of England has been battered by snowstorms and in the middle of a global pandemic.

But fuck it. You’re only forty once.

The first time I went to the Lake District was as a child. It was my dad’s favourite place and after years of summer holidays spent seeing mom’s friends and family in America he insisted we finally get to be exposed to something he wanted to share with us.

We stayed at a fancy hotel on the outskirts of Keswick, overlooking Derwentwater. It was the poshest place I’d ever been - long, multi-course dinners, cozy lounges with roaring fires and jaw-dropping views of the lake from the window of our bedroom. And it was possibly the happiest family holiday we ever had together. We went back to the Lake District a lot. Stayed in Keswick most of the time. But that first trip was always the most magical, and we never stayed at the weird posh hotel ever again.

I’d spoken about it to my wife though, and a few months back she suggested we find the hotel and book it for a birthday trip. Why not? And so we did.

It’s changed ownership since the 1990s when we first stayed there, but the stunning views are the same. And while the level of poshness has evolved and adapted to a more spa-retreat crowd and the seven course dinners are gone, the food remains amazing. Surviving snow and hail en route, we arrived Friday night and had a great meal before crashing out in our room to a Bowie documentary on TV. Saturday we woke up early and ate breakfast, saw the nearby falls, and walked along Derwentwater into Keswick. There were a few flooded areas we had to circumnavigate or avoid, and the walk was a mix of footpath, wood and road, but it felt lovely to be in this place that was so special during my birthday. We walked in the shadow of Cat Bells, where once we scattered my dad’s ashes. The first Lakeland fell we ever walked together.

Grabbing a pasty to eat as lunch as we walked back. We enjoyed more views of the lake and its surrounding mountains before indulging in the poshness with some tea and scones in the hotel lounge and a bit of reading. Then some more reading preceded a fabulous dinner, which included the hotel staff, unbidden, writing “happy birthday” in my dessert and bringing us free champagne (I didn’t have the heart to tell them I didn’t drink).

Now it’s the next day, and we’re driving home again, listening to Bowie, ready to be back in work again on Monday. Totally exhausting, and totally worth it.